Cardi B's First Single Just Beat Taylor Swift for the No. 1 Song in the Country

"Bodak Yellow" has finally topped the Billboard Hot 100

Atlantic Records

By
Matt Miller

In mid-August, about two months after Cardi B released her debut single "Bodak Yellow," I decided to go see her play a show at MoMa PS1 in Queens, New York. It was absolutely nuts. And not just for a show at a museum—it was nuts for ANY show. Hundreds of people had filled the two courtyards on the museum grounds, and half of them probably couldn't even see the stage. It was chaos. And it was all for Cardi B—a Bronx-born rapper and reality star who hasn't even released a proper album yet. In fact, that very same day, she predicted that "Bodak Yellow" would become the No. 1 song in an interview with the New York Times.

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Before she got into music, Cardi worked as a stripper in the Bronx, during which she became an Instagram celebrity. Her musical debut came in 2015 on a remix to Shaggy's "Boom Boom" with Popcaan. That same year, she joined the cast of VH1's Love & Hip Hop: New York, where she became known for her "don't fuck with me" attitude until she left the show two years later to focus on music.

Her first mixtape, Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 1, was released the next year, and made an appearance on the U.S. hip-hop charts. And earlier this year, she signed with Atlantic Records.

On June 16, Cardi released her debut major label single "Bodak Yellow," which has already appeared on a number of the best songs of 2017 lists. Though it only debuted at 85 on the Hot 100, it became a strong contender for song of the summer, propelled by performances at OVO Fest and the MTV VMAs pre-show (it should have been during the main show, IMHO).

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Throughout the weeks it moved its way up the charts until today, when it finally topped Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do" as the No. 1 song in the country. This marks the first time a female rapper has topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart without assistance from any other artists in nearly two decades. She's only the second rapper to do this, the first being Lauryn Hill's "Doo Wop (That Thing)" in 1998.

After all this build-up, her first album is finally set to drop in October.